MONACO (Basketball Champions League) - The French Riviera has always been a favorite destination for the rich and famous. Now it's home to a rising star in European basketball.

AS Monaco, a team that wasn't even in the top flight of the French game a couple of years ago, is one of the country's top sides. This isn't a team that's just winning a lot of games. It's doing so with plenty of flair.

Winners of the last two Disneyland Paris Leaders Cups, The Rock club is two victories away from Basketball Champions League glory. The French LNB leaders will be at the Final four in Tenerife, 28 April to 30 April.

What sort of year has it been for the club in the Basketball Champions League? We spoke to general manager Oleksiy Yefimov to find out.

You and everyone at AS Monaco must be really excited about how things have gone in both France and Europe this season.

Yes, it's true. Of course for us, it seems to be a fairytale but Monaco is a place where dreams come true. So we need to follow the overall strategy of Monaco (laughs).

Is it easy to attract talented players like Ukraine international Sergii Gladyr to a place like Monaco?

Yes definitely. This is one of our strong sides because I guess Monaco is one of the best places in the world. Of course, players take this into consideration when talking to us. This is one of the reasons why we can construct a team that would probably cost a lot more elsewhere, even if you take a look at the financial stats of the French league last year, five teams had bigger budgets than us. Yet we were able to promote ourselves and become an important player in the premier basketball league.

Actually the first trophy we got was last year because we won the Leaders Cup then, too, and then this year, we protected that trophy. We're the first team ever to have won back-to-back Leaders Cup trophies. We won the Leaders Cup last year as the newcomers of the first division. It was really great because it was the first-ever title for a basketball team in Monaco. This is something that gives us recognition in Monaco, and in France. This title gave us a chance to play internationally this year and to promote our team, Monaco, abroad. This was our primary goal, to become international, an international team.

Now that you have made it into Europe, has the Basketball Champions League in this inaugural season of the competition met your expectations?

Definitely because the Basketball Champions League gave us a chance to compete with some of the best European teams. For example, we've played Dinamo Sassari in the Quarter-Finals, a team that played in the Euroleague last year and that won the Italian league two years ago. We played other important, European powerhouses.

Yefimov was at the draw for the Quarter-Finals

From a competition standpoint, what were your expectations of the Basketball Champions League?

Our minimum goal was to qualify for the Play-Offs. We didn't expect that we would become one of the top eight, or top four teams. Monaco is an outstanding place with a great football team. But to have the brand image become important, the only chance was to take on great European teams, which the Basketball Champions League has allowed us to do. We've played against teams with great tradition and arenas. AEK's stadium, for example, is as big as our soccer arena in Monaco. It's great experience and we're really excited. The whole season was really incredible.

The high point of the season for AS Monaco in the Basketball Champions League?

To play against AEK in the Round of 16, a club with a big fan base. It was a remarkable moment. 

Is the success in Europe bringing more fans to the club?

Definitely. For example, our gym was full for the game against AEK. For us, it's much easier to sell out the gym on the weekend in the French league but in the work week, it's harder but we succeeded. It's not only our achievement, but the achievement of the Basketball Champions League which made a great effort in marketing and promotion and also our opponents brought excitement.

The broadcasting and live streaming of games, what has that done for Monaco?

This is the most important thing. It's easy to make a team but it's extremely hard to make a real club because the club is something which has a fan base. If you are not shown or promoted on TV, in Monaco, in France, as well as abroad, it's impossible to have any big goals.

We've had a lot of fun promoting the teams and the league in the social media, especially with the videos. Has that spiced things up in your opinion?

I would say that this is the best achievement of the Basketball Champions League management. I truly believe that everyone at the league made a great effort on this issue. This is something which we really appreciate a lot because this is what gave to your project and as well as to our project the great recognition and it helped us to increase our market and our value. This is something that we could not even have imagined. Our expectations, honestly speaking, were much less compared to what the Basketball Champions League did and served us with. From my point of view, this is the crucial point.

Are you and the fans watching the games that are live streamed?

For us, this is extremely important because in Monaco, there are people of 124, 128 different nationalities so for our fans and society, it was extremely important to have English speaking commentators. For example, me personally, I don't speak French. I am trying to but so far not (laughs). So I watch a lot of games, not only of Monaco but, I try to watch everything. I would say thanks to the media and marketing efforts, you have brought basketball to a new level. This is something I hear more and more from the fans. They are saying that the Basketball Champions League is like the European NBA. I'm talking about the quality of the product. I'm not talking only about pure basketball, but the show, the atmosphere, the ambiance, everything.